Yukirin Is Love. Yuri Is Life!

PARKS [J-Movie]

It is their story – A story of Haru (Mei’s character) storming into and sparking a flame of life, into Jun’s (Ai’s character) life!!!

Literally a full manual in front of you to make a great yuri story!!!!

Then fucking it up!!!!!

What happened to my Japan? Sure Japan has a huge history of bad story resolutions, which I think always comes down to wet feet but it is not like they don’t have good resolutions! Like, my favourite Japanese Movie, My 4th Commandment, has an ending to end all endings and the characters in that movie not only played step-sisters in the movie but they are actually real sisters! If a movie with those elements managed to give us a great, BEST ending, why are you getting cold feet these days?

Like, we all know how it is A-okay to yaoi and yuri when you are young as opposed to when you grow up, where the term ‘it was just a phase’ comes from, why is it then that these days it is the adult movies that get the good yuri stories with great endings as opposed to general audience movies?!

I mean, in the last few years almost all young cast yuri movies (read Shishunki Gokko and more on this site) have had BAD ENDS whereas adult movies like Aka x Pinku, Torture Club and White Lily (New & a post coming soon) have frikkin GREAT yuri and ENDs! like, I don’t get it!

Are you trying to fight homophobia in adults and tell them it is okay now to not bury your real selves by making porn with plot movies? That is a noble cause but why sacrifice the young gen in the process? It makes no sense to instill phobia in people when they are young by showing only the negative aspects if same sex relationships because then what is the point if they are already scared when they grow up?

And there I go getting side-tracked again, but seriously, look at the caps above! Look at the potential! In fact I am just going to talk about the wasted potential for this post so I can make it short…

It begins right at the very beginning! And by that I mean the two’s first ever meeting! Jun (Ai) and Haru’s (Mei) meeting is so gay and timely that were this a boy and girl they would have factually fallen in love by the end of the movie! Actually forget imagining! Their meeting was the exact reflection of Haru’s late Dad’s meeting with his first love (the main plot of this movie). In fact it was in the exact same place, and the exact same situation!

Oh shit, this makes me remember a moment later on when they go on that lover’s ride in a duck boat! Something Haru said about lovers who ride that boat eventually breaking up because there was a curse about that or something! If this were fore-shadowing for the ending of their relationship, does that give them a free pass?

HELL NO!

Back to the point, the movie is basically Haru trying to dig up her recently dead Father’s memories based on a series of photos she found in his belongings. Her mother will soon re-marry and she did not want to forget about her Dad so she went on this journey, a journey that will use to write a book based on that hidden story of her Father’s. It so happens that the place her Father’s Crush stayed at was the apartment where Jun was living!

So anyway there is their meeting, all riddled with meaning when you consider what happened before with Haru’s father and his first love!

The next moment was that Jun really loved watching a sleeping Haru! If it was not important then I don’t see what the Director would go out of their way to not only linger on those moments of Haru sleeping and Jun always watching her (sleep in which she would dream of her Father and thus connecting the dots of their search in real life) but for there to be not one, not two but three of such instances! You can’t just do things like that! But we did get them and I was so expecting them to pay off but alas!

Another point is that there is a Guy involved here! Given the story of Haru’s father, it having a love triangle in there (albeit with two guys loving the same girl), it would have been so easy to have either Haru or Jun or both of them fall for the guy and have events from years ago reflect their own lives! hell, at the beginning of the movie Jun got dumped by her boyfriend, one a many wrong things going in her life! But there was no romance here or innuendos between the guy and the girls! Na da!

Speaking of Jun’s life, here comes another good potential point! Jun’s life was at its lowest when Haru stormed into it, gave it purpose and a connection that Jun lacked. The only other person that Jun was shown close to was a childhood classmate, with whom they still meet but they are not close friends per say, more like acquaintances! Speaking of her, there was potential there too. They had…tension, and they clashed a couple of times given Jun’s personality and state of life at the moment. They could have used that opportunity to build them up, especially seeing as Haru was to leave in the end anyway but I think those two even were on worse terms by the end of the movie! Jun’s friend had tried everything to get them to be recognized and even enter them into a LIVE stage to perform but Jun fucked it up royally.

This brings me to the next point, or two actually! Jun has a flighty personality. She is not very motivated and usually gives up things she has started half-way. One of those was her as a musician. She gave that up in Junior High (she is currently in Uni) and guess who got her to touch a guitar again? Yep, you guessed it – Haru! Haru was sulking having just found out that the Mother of her Dad’s first love had just passed away (who is actually the boy’s grandmother) and Jun was not giving her the time instead she was concentrating on finishing that way overdue paper (half a year over-due!). Jun caves and plays a song to Haru, which puts a smile on her face, which also bring out that musician spark that was buried in Jun right back out when she sees how genuine Haru was in her happiness at hearing Jun play.

The eventuality of the three starting a band because of Jun was because of Haru. Jun was playing for Haru, which gave us that scene when after completing the song and giving a recording to Haru who had been absent, a time in which something bad happened and had her in a bad mood again, when Jun asked her what she thought Haru wasn’t impressed! She said it lacked ‘feeling’, there was no feeling in the song like the one she felt from her Father’s song to his first love which was filled with emotion.

Understandably Jun is not happy about it and it affects her more than she shows at this moment. This will come back to bite them later. Meanwhile Haru being in a bad mood might have not felt ‘it’ because her heart was already disturbed. There is this old guy that used to know Haru’s father that Haru grows close to. he is not in great health and this was one of those bad days. To make it worse, the way to his house was blocked off due to a high tide warning (they way was over a river). So Haru might have missed what Jun was trying to say in the song because she wasn’t looking and Jun is not one to express herself very well.

This moment comes back later as I said to bite them when the moment comes for them to perform LIVE. But remember that Haru did not like the sample so Jun is very demotivated at the moment. But she can’t not perform because her ‘friend’ had arranged everything for them and Jun did not want to turn let her down. Not only that but Jun had also invited the Old man to come watch them. Yet another reason to not quit.

But then Fate happens. The other guys they had recruited to fill up the band ate something bad and they had to leg it. The Buy was also in bad shape but he insisted on staying and performing. It goes without saying that he did not survive the stage. To his credit he hang in there until Jun broke down.

As for Jun, she was ready to go all out despite the mishaps. She even put on a Blue Dress to reflect her young self that was kind of famous and did CMs and people flocked to see perform. Butt there was still an obstacle to overcome!

Haru!

Being both looking forward to her appearing and also fearing because of what happened before, because of what Haru thought, or didn’t think of her song before, it goes without saying that just as the Boy was introducing the song and they were about to start, when Jun’s met Haru’s, the world exploded!

And here comes the moment! These two get the ‘World of MAYUKI’ treatment, as I like to call it! Everything around them disappears! Light fades out of existence, only with the two of them illuminated! Jun doesn’t even blink in that moment the two stare at each other! Her mouth is wide open! he mind so obviously reeling!

God, they even get the 360 camera treatment! Then without even knowing it Jun’s hands are moving! She is punishing that poor guitar unconsciously! In fact she is just making unintelligible noises! Totally reflecting the chaos going on within her heart, mind and body! Eye, still locked onto Haru!

Now, I kind of like the idea of her just creating random noises because it shows just how looking forward to Haru’s arrival she was, to the point of becoming a complete wreak! But they missed the ball on this scene too. Just imagine it, her hands move without her knowing! All she is seeing, all she is feeling is Haru! Unbeknownst to her, she is actually playing that song that Haru loves, almost as good, if not even better than the original because here, Jun is projecting her own feelings for Haru and Haru, as she is ready to listen, takes in every ounce of it!

Just imagine it dear Readers! Then when she comes too she is crying. The crowd is stunned, but in good conscious this time. Haru too is crying! The two have saved each other! Jun finally finds a path for her future and Haru having gotten the perfect memory of her Father and her book’s story complete, she too is done! Jun has made her ‘friend’ proud too.

If that had happened then the last scene would have happened differently. the last scene that should have ended into a kiss but instead, because of what happened at the LIVE, Jun is in worse shape than she was and the two end up fighting instead!

Yeah, unfortunately that nose-to-nose scene was a fight, not a I wanna kiss you right now scene!

But that is not even the worst part! The worst part is that, that fight, was their final scene! Yes, dear Readers, they fight and the movie ends with Haru running away (having been staying with Jun all this time BTW)! I kid you not! We did not even get a resolution to the fight! The damn movie ended with them on bad terms! Can you fuckin believe that!?! Ah but wait, what is even worse (yes, worse) is the fact that Jun tried to stop Haru. She apologized. She passed tissues to a crying Haru. She held onto Haru’s script to get her to stay! She physically held onto Haru’s hand even to stop her from leaving! But what was the chili on that cake was the fact that after Haru ran out, after she looked up at Jun’s window in sadness, Jun got up to run after her to stop her…murmuring to herself ‘Don’t Go’! Jun ran after Haru! Jun went on a park’s PA System and sang live that song just to get Haru back for Christ’s sake!!!!! And yet guess what happened in the end between the two?

A BIG FAT NOTHING!!!!

I am not making this up! Someone took the time to setup this story. managed to grab Ai and Mei as the actors and yet this is the end product!!!!

I don’t know what is happening the late quarter of 2017 but I have never in my life experience such depression! it’s like I am being attacked from all angles! My Idol life is in shambles because of MAYUKI breaking up (you know what I mean). My beloved DCEU has gone and kicked me in the very soul with justice League and now I can’t even have this!!

I have to commend myself for still being sane at this very moment in time! And to keep that sanity, I better stop talking about this movie.